


Don’t Hate Me When I Leave

by keicros_caramel



Series: I Don't Mind Dying [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bitterness, Guilt, Hanahaki Disease, Hospitals, Illnesses, M/M, Minor Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Minor Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi, One Shot, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Past Oikawa Tooru/Ushijima Wakatoshi, Sad Oikawa Tooru, Sarcasm, Shiratorizawa, The Author Regrets Nothing, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Unrequited Love, You Should Have Come to Shiratorizawa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25560271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keicros_caramel/pseuds/keicros_caramel
Summary: Last night, he dreamt of Iwaizumi. That must be the reason this man is strapped to the IV right now.>> Ushijima gets rushed to the ER, bloody and surrounded with petals. Oikawa struggles with the fact it was actually his fault this time.
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Series: I Don't Mind Dying [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874995
Comments: 6
Kudos: 99





	Don’t Hate Me When I Leave

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always wanted to write the concept of Hanahaki. Whump-y things like Hanahaki (and illness in general) really gets me.

_Love is not easy._

_Love is not pure._

_Love is not kind._

_But I promise you one thing:_ _I will love you until I die._

* * *

Oikawa got the call at five in the morning, interrupting his Spotify playlist shuffle with Tendou's caller ID. He stopped his morning jog when he was told to come to the hospital as soon as he could. 

It didn't please him to know he was there earlier than even the entirety of Shiratorizawa. 

Seeing the white halls, the sunrise past the glass panes and the coldness of 70% isopropyl alcohol on his skin, it did nothing but remind him of all the times he spent stuck inside the same white cube they called the hospital. His knee ached the moment he stepped foot inside. 

_“Ah, you're here._ ”

He was outside, delivering the "I just got here" speech to the Shiratorizawa team he rehearsed at the convenience store nearby. The clock ticked 6, and sun peeked past the horizon and said "Hi." He gave it a middle finger and followed Tendou inside. 

The man that single-handedly carried his entire volleyball career laid still on the bed, and Oikawa took the seat farthest from the man and nearest to the door. If only Tendou wasn't aware of his involvement, he wouldn't be forced to come. 

But nobody forced him to come. He jogged on his own, and he hated himself more for that. 

Being the odd one out, he kept his mouth shut as Semi explained how they found Ushijima motionless and bloody at the bathroom. Shirabu followed up the time they rushed him to the ER; it was thirty-minutes before midnight. Around the same time, he was sleeping soundly at home, dreaming happily of a life he can only live whilst unconscious. 

Last night, he dreamt of Iwaizumi. That must be the reason this man is strapped to the IV right now. 

Nonetheless, Oikawa kept his tongue bitten and his eyes dry as they talked more, mostly to remind themselves of the incident rather than inform him. 

It was when he was left alone in the room did it start to hit him harder. No matter what he told himself, he was the reason this man had his near-death experience. He was the reason this man's lungs became pricklier than his home garden. He was the reason of somebody's loss. 

On Ushijima's defense, Oikawa had known for years. No amount of justifying can change the fact he knew and yet did nothing. 

_“Oikawa.”_

_“What?”_

_“I love you.”_

_“I know, please get away from me.”_

That's how it went down. He can barely remember the day, but it still lingered at the back of his head along with the other memories he wanted to deny. 

Ushijima Wakatoshi is the exact kind of person a broken person would romanticize, Tendou once told him. Being the said broken person only intensified Oikawa's hate for the other captain and also for himselfーcould he ever forgive himself for letting it get this bad? 

On the contrary, he never meant for Ushijima to suffer. He never meant to plant seeds on the man's organs and watch bloody petals scratch his larynx. He may despise the man—shoot him twice in a scenario he was stuck with evil presidents and Ushijima, laugh when Ushijima almost got ran over by a truck—but he never wanted anyone to die. 

Iwaizumi, Hanamaki and Matsukawa arrived around 8, holding up breakfasts and showing up like they just crawled out of bed. None of them said anything as to why they didn't bother cleaning up before visiting, but Oikawa saw Tendou's name on Iwaizumi's call log, just after he was called that morning. As always, someone else had to watch over him rather than he do it himself. 

He was helpless. 

As they all ate breakfast in silence, breathing along the beats of the heart monitor, Oikawa felt eyes blaring deep holes on his head that he can almost hear the words that it begged to say. Iwaizumi then grabbed him and stared at him, asking without words and only with eyes. Oikawa understood the implication. 

_“The only reason you liked the outer space so much is that you have always wanted to find some other planet you can blame your bad karma on!”_ voice shouted in his head, “ _Guess what, Shittykawa? You live on the fucking Earth and all your problems simply had to boomerang back to you.”_

 _Look at what you've done,_ it added. _Look at what the actual hell you've done._

He wasn't sure if that voice is still Iwaizumi or it's just his twisted conscience. Perhaps it was both. 

Ushijima remained asleep. 

At this point, he cannot even apologize anymore, even if he wanted to. Even if the Shiratorizawa team remained light with him despite being responsible for their captain's illness, even if Hanamaki and Matsukawa didn't call him out on it, even if Iwaizumi kept his mouth shut and let him process his denial on his ownーthere's no denying that people like him don't deserve kindness and strength. 

He wasn't worth a broken heart. That's the bottom line of it all, he thought as he realized he was wearing mismatched socks that entire morning. 

He was called a bad person all his life, perhaps because he was a smartmouth or because he stands on grudges with no intention to change. This time, he lived up to his title. All hail the evilest person on the world. All hail the murderer of romance, enemy of hanahaki disease, king of all heartbreakers, the man in room 143 wearing one sock white and the other black: ladies and gentlefolk, Mr. Oikawa Tooru. 

_Maybe he should stop blaming himself for things he wasn't supposed to be blamed for?_ He asked himself as he stared at his feet.

 _Ah, right._ That's what bad guys say to justify their lack of empathy. 

The convenience store curry tasted bland on his tongue as the first of the tears started to fall down his cheeks. Because even if there are thousands of qualifications to rightfully call someone a bad person, not being able to love is not one of them. 

Because he tried, not once but _twice_. He actually tried to get his ego out of his ass and put himself out there to give the man a chance. He was aware of the three choices the man is forced to choose between—be loved, get surgery or die. He knew very well how terrifying it is to be told you can never live happily again. He was aware of the mortal fear it instilled not just on Ushijima, but all the people surrounding him. His parents, his friends, his teammatesーall these lives will change and all of that depends on him, whether he would grow to reciprocate the love that has nowhere to go. 

Alas, went nowhere it did. 

_Was he an evil person for failing?_ He honestly thought he was done feeling like that. 

Sometimes, he stares at Tendou Satori and wished Ushijima had loved him instead. Tendou had been with him more than Oikawa ever did. Tendou had comforted him through anxiety attacks Oikawa caused. Tendou had fought with Ushijima in battles Oikawa started. They were opposites in many different ways, and in almost every one, Oikawa was the bad one. 

God, he's so tired of antagonizing himself, but _what_ is he supposed to do with all this guilt? 

_Why can't you just love Tendou, huh?_ Oikawa stared hardly at the man's peaceful sleeping face.

 _Fuck his feelings,_ fuck whoever his heart had wanted—Ushijima doesn't deserve someone who teased him with a chance at life and threw it away. Ushijima doesn't deserve someone who can't decide on his feelings and settled on half-assed mixed signals to say he "tried". Ushijima doesn't deserve being only liked and never loved. 

He's already more than good enough. A lot of people admired Ushijima in more ways than one. Oikawa was sure there are people on the team willing to live the rest of their life loving the man.

_Why can't you just love them instead, Wakatoshi?!_

Holy shit, honestly. _Ushijima, your way of loving is so fucking stupid._ If someone (probably Semi) told him one more time that they're such a perfect match, that they're the two sides of the same coin, he's going to riot because as far as he can tell, one of them is a bad person and the other is simply just in pain. 

Whichever of them falls on those two categories varies from moment to moment, and from which perspective it was asked from. 

And out of all, Oikawa wished his own romance well. If he can't bring himself to love someone as gentle to him as Ushijima wasーsomeone as dedicated to him as the captain wasーthen his romance sure is dead. He's fucked, and for some debatable reason, it's exactly what he deserved to pushing someone to death. 

The worst part is that, it wasn't even the worst thing Oikawa did to Ushijima. His nightmares insisted he was also the reason Ushijima hated himself the loudest. All the frequent apologizing, the increasing self-doubt, all the " _Sorry, I must be annoying_ " and the " _Just ignore me_ "s, it was the result of his poor attempt to love him back. Instead of pulling him back up to the surface, he did nothing but strap more weights on Ushijima's ankles and watched him sink further to the depths. 

And it was intentional. He expressed his hatred for the man loudly, so Ushijima clapped his hands over his ears and curled onto himself. Because if he hates himself first, Oikawa can never hate him more than he did himself. If Oikawa hates him loudly, he'll compensate by hating himself loudest. That must have been why he's blind to all love that came his way. It was a large price to pay to never hear hatred any more: it means you can never hear love either. 

Summoning all common sense from all 7 billion people on Earth, Oikawa wanted to ask, _What the actual fucking kind of logic is that?_ However, he cannot bring himself to answer as that coping mechanism is too damn familiar to be something worth questioning. 

_They really are two sides of the same coin_ , hypothetical-Semi is right. 

From the moment Ushijima told him how he felt and that he caught love's cruel disease, it was meant to end in disasterーand that is the most optimistic it could get. 

_I'm so sorry, Ushijima._

The man remained asleep. 

Oikawa made his way to the bedside, followed by his friends who piled onto him with well-guarded tears of their own. He held Ushijima's limp hand and leaned to it, begging with the remains of his selfishness to be forgiven. 

_Just live through this and get your surgery_ , he pleaded, _and I promise I wouldn't hate you when you leave._

His tears stained the cold hand warmly. 

They left the hospital around noon. The noon sun greeted him back harshly as if it was smugly returning his middle finger back to him. Taking Iwaizumi's offer to drive them back home, he cannot bear to look out the window and see the white building that terrorized him all his life. 

The bottom line is that he should have worn two black socks instead of one. There's no use subtly trying to justify himself faultless when he just killed a heart that did nothing but love him.

“Forgive yourself, Oikawa.”

Iwaizumi spoke for the first time that day, voice gentle unlike the lecture it delivered to him in his head.

“Ushijima will forgive you, he already probably did.” 

And that's the worst part of it all. 

_Fin._

* * *

_Love is not easy._

_Love is not pure._

_Love is not kind._

_Love is just something lonely people do to spend time._

**Author's Note:**

> Lonely People - Tiny Little Houses 
> 
> What’s just as painful as unrequited love? Maybe being the one who can’t love someone back? 
> 
> Oikawa didn’t mean to. He never meant to.


End file.
